Side-Swipe
by Jadiona
Summary: This story takes place prior to the start of Death and Rebirth and has to do with an event mentioned in Chapter 2 – Stitches. This is a Weber family story and focuses on cause and effect, because of the fact that Beau supposedly died.


**Side-Swipe**

 **Disclaimer:** I am not Stephenie Meyer and I do not own the rights to the Twilight Saga, Life and Death, or any of the accouterments in the series.

 **AN:** This story takes place prior to the start of Death and Rebirth and has to do with an event mentioned in Chapter 2 – Stitches. This is a Weber family story and focuses on cause and effect, because of the fact that Beau supposedly died.

Originally, I was going to write this story from Mrs. Weber's perspective and just show one specific scene, but the more I thought on what I was going to write, the more I felt it would be appropriate to see the family as a whole, which is why this story is written in third person and goes past where I originally planned to end it.

* * *

The depression that ensued in the weeks after Beau's funeral proved to be a cruel master to Charlie Swan – who was losing himself to whiskey, anti-depressants, and sleeping pills. He even picked back up his old habit of smoking, something he hadn't done in over eighteen years.

In fact if it weren't for the Webers, he'd have become a complete a hermit, but Mrs Weber and her three kids came by a few times a week and brought over homemade meals to him, cleaned the dishes that were left in the sink, and helped with the odd chores around the house.

Every Sunday, either Mr Weber or Allen would drive over and pick up Charlie to take him to church, trying to help him in the only Christianly way they could.

The twins, Isis and Josie, were – more or less – oblivious to the sad state of Charlie's life, too caught up in their own pre-teen drama of coming of age, finding their first crushes, and just enjoying life in general to be bothered by what they saw. They went to the chief's house to help out because their mother insisted, nothing more.

For the rest of the family... They noticed. It was impossible for Allen not to see the sad affair of Charlie's house, and he started going over every other Saturday to mow the yard and wash the car for Charlie, just trying to help out.

Allen still made time to go out with Becca, who he was legitimately starting to fall in love with, and still made time to hang out with Jeremy and Logan, but he was truly concerned for the chief's welfare.

It made the fact that Beau had committed suicide the way he did even more disgusting. Oh, it hadn't been in the paper that his friend had committed suicide, but he knew... everyone knew. It had been obvious, one just wouldn't fall asleep at the wheel in _that_ old truck.

The fact that it had been a suicide had been discussed at Forks High School – in hushed whispers and murmured gossip – back before school got out for the summer. Mr Weber had even offered to council poor Edythe Cullen who'd been so distraught by Beau's death that she'd dropped out of school, but her parents had refused, stating she just needed time.

Mr Weber's one and only trip out to the Cullens house in late May had been short, he'd been allowed inside and had sat and had coffee with Carine and Earnest, but it had been obvious that they'd wanted him to leave. He never went back after that.

Mrs Weber, who had dealt with an unfortunate bout of postpartum depression after giving birth to the twins, knew that if Charlie's melancholia was left without proper treatment it would be permanently damaging. So, during the first week of July, the day before Independence Day, she made a trip to Seattle to check out some clinics for rehabilitation.

When she got into Seattle, still on the I-5, a horrifying pile-up occurred. Over twenty cars in all, fifteen dead, and twelve seriously injured. For her part, she never even felt the impact as a car rammed into the driver's side at over a seventy miles an hour. It killed her instantly.

As the news made it to the Weber family, it caused a great deal of pain for all. Three days later, on the sixth of July, a local reporter came by to get their story. A picture was taken and posted on the front page of the newspaper, as if they were still some big happy family.

That Sunday, when Allen was supposed to go pick up Charlie, he drove by his house to do just that... but when he got there, he didn't stop. Later on, when his dad asked where Charlie had been, Allen lied and claimed Charlie had decided to start going fishing again and wouldn't be needing their support anymore.

Mr Weber, for his part, wasn't a complete fool and suspected that Allen might not be telling the entire truth, but he didn't look too deeply into it because he was still too grief ridden over the loss of his wife – after all, they'd been married and deeply in love for over twenty-five years.

Allen broke up with Becca shortly after that, not able to deal with being in a relationship anymore. And while he knew that it was unchristian to hate people, and especially when one of them was dead, he still hated Beau and Charlie. He truly did, because if it hadn't been for Beau killing himself, Allen would still have his mom.

So he prayed and he started researching Christian Universities that he could go to.


End file.
